Letters
by Acey Dearest
Summary: My own semi-epic. A former colleague finds old letters sent to her by Dr. Gero, describing why he did what he did, and how. Chapter eighteen uploaded.
1. Return

"Letters"

by Acey

Edited and revised as of October 22, 2005. Thank you all for your patience. I will finish this fic.

The woman turned off the engine of her aircar, let herself out, and promptly recapsulized it. Rushing to the front porch, she noticed that the total effect of the house was not as she had left it. The flowers that had practically covered the lawn were almost gone, choked by weeds. The paint was peeling from the shutters. _My, my_, she thought wryly, _the maids seem to have shirked their work. Ah, well, can't expect too much nowadays. No one treats the field with much respect anymore._

She sifted through a coatpocket and produced the housekey, muttering to herself as she unlocked the door and let herself in. 'Well, at least they didn't change the lock and use my house for partying.'

"Miss?"

The mistress had always insisted on the old-fashioned standard of address between servant and whatever the politically correct term was now for the one higher above that. But she paid them well, no doubt about that, "much better than most old gals," as the head cook would put it. Much better.

"Yes, Cook, I'm back. Did you miss me?"

"Yes, Miss. I'm probably the only one. When you didn't come back after your month of leave was over, the--"

"I quite understand. My trip--took longer than it should have. Have you been keeping the house, Cook?"

"Yes, Miss. Wasn't able to do much else, I'm afraid. I can't tell the flowers from the weeds, so I didn't do anything with your garden. And the shutters--"

"It's fine. I'll pay you double for staying on." The mistress of the house sat down, playing with a string of faded pink hair. She was nearly seventy and was finally starting to show her age. Years in the field of science had worn her down, drained her slowly but surely. The energetic young woman that had majored in four areas at once in college was gone.

Struck by a new thought, she stopped twisting the strand and spoke.

"Any mail, Cook?"

The cook bobbed her head up and down.

"Lots, Miss."

"I'd like to see it."

"I stacked it all upstairs in your room, if you don't mind, Miss."

"What makes you think I'd mind? Now, all I want are the letters. Not the bills (you forwarded all the bills to me, I know), not the magazines ("Science Weeky" has gotten a bit old, even for my tastes), not the junk. Just the letters. Will you get them for me?"

"Which ones, Miss?"

"The ones addressed to me, obviously."

Rolling her eyes, the cook trudged upstairs and after a moment's search in her employer's boudoir, produced the letters.

"Thank you. Now--"

The woman examined the pile of sealed envelopes and sorted them into stacks.

"Stupid Doctor Tanner-- he must've sent a letter every week on how my theories are all wrong-- augh, Tanner again-- doesn't that silly man have anything better to do than to disprove all scientific theories from Archimedes downward? Taylor-- the fool thinks I can place his daughter in Harvard. I wouldn't do that even if I could, you can bet your last zene..."

She paused at an enveloped overlooked.

"Gero? Gero! My old college friend down at Western Capital College! He still remembers me! Oh, bless the man... Be a dear and get a letter opener, would you? Thanks..."

The shift in mood was evident even to the none-too-observant cook. The mistresses' shrewd green eyes were sparkling to the point that they looked like they belonged on the face of a sixteen-year-old enjoying her first reciporated crush than to an elderly, brilliant winner of the Nobel Prize in both physics and chemistry twice who had never so much as had a boyfriend to speak of, even in her prime, not that she wasn't sought after then.

"Good of Gero to write me a letter-- get me a paper and pen, Cook, please..."

_Next thing you know, the old bat'll want me to sign a contract for slavery_, the cook thought bitterly. _Well, at least now she's smiling. The gal hasn't smiled in the whole time I've worked in this place..._


	2. First Correspondence

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: Me still no own. You still no sue. Me think better stop typing broken English.  
  
Wow! I never expected a review so soon! Thanks, Kelly! Well, here it is, chapter two.  
  
She filtered through the stack before actually opening the letters, getting them in meticulous, chronological order. Too meticulous. It was almost like she was afraid to read what Gero had written to her. Odd, quite odd, for the woman hadn't ever displayed anything but coldness in relation to former classmates, at least, the ones she had told the cook about, saying things like "So-and-so was a bore, to say the least, pushed into college by his dear old daddy's money. I'll have you know that immediately after his father died and he took control of his business, the entire company flopped down to nothing. Money can't buy brains."  
"Miss?"  
"Cook?"  
"Are you going to read them?"  
The woman laughed a bit mockingly.  
"That's what letters are for, aren't they, Cook?"  
"Well, yes, but you don't seem to be reading them."  
She glared.  
"I will read them when I read them, in the privacy of my own room, thank you very much, Cook."  
Scowling, the cook returned to setting the table as her mistress left the kitchen. ***********************  
As soon as she was positive that the envelopes were in the correct order, she cautiously slid in the letter opener.  
'What're you afraid of, silly girl?' she chided to herself. 'He didn't poison it, and besides, he wasn't ever interested in y--'  
She forced herself to stop. Pulling back the knife-shaped opener, she turned the envelope and poured its contents on her bed.  
It wasn't anything spectacular, but then there was only so much an envelope of normal size could hold. Just a few pieces of paper, folded carefully, written in Gero's supremely careful hand. When they were in college, she would constantly tease him about his handwriting, saying that it looked like he had memorized the old penmanship handbooks. Her own writing was terrible, another of those reasons she used a word processor for everything from formulas to inquiries.  
There was nothing more she could do to delay it. She unfolded the papers and began to read. *************************  
  
  
My dear _______ , January 6, 760  
  
I realize you are on vacation at the moment; however, I am certain you will get these messages after your safe and speedy return. You've really done very well for yourself during this past nearly half of a century since we went our separate ways, achieving all that you strived to, and more in your chosen-- and my own chosen-- field. You have every right to be proud of yourself. I hope you continue to do so well.  
I write to you because we are the last of the lone scientists. Discoveries are being made by companies now; if you don't believe it, just look at the Capsule Corporation what with its ten thousand employees and its monopolizing. Is there one person behind this operation? Not anymore, I'm afraid.   
Well, you know the saying that "the Old Guard dies but never surrenders." We're the Old Guard now, and don't worry. We've got a few more years before our final submissions to the the corporate bigshots, and we rest in our graves. Our ways will die with us, unfortunately. You know it, and I know it. Unless-- but it's far to late for that idea of mine.  
As you doubtless know, Red Ribbon crashed almost before I'd even started to build up a reputation therein. A certain ingrate by the name of Goku mutilated the entirety of the Army, the entirety of just about every aspect of the company, except me. Can you imagine the humiliation I felt when I found out of this? It upsets me even today, years later, that everything Red Ribbon ever was or could be was gone, gone because of some child. That's who did it, a twelve-year-old child. I publish this because my reputation as a scientist is no longer of any true importance to me. My career was over before it ever really began, and the irony of it is that I don't really care about it anymore. A reputation only lasts so long, anyway; a chance could make or break it. You made it; I broke it.   
Don't fret; I'm not jealous of what you have accomplished, far from it. I have other matters to keep me busy nowadays, and the one thing I haven't lost since the destruction of the Red Ribbon Army by that little brat was my mind. There's still that, there will always be that much to console me, always.  
But on to a different subject, before I close this letter to you, or before you, having better judgement than I do, throw this in the fire and call the authorities. You would be completely in the right to do so. I wouldn't blame you one iota. I'm still wanted for what I've done; I will be wanted for what I'm doing now, and you and everyone else on Earth know it. Turn me in, but let me finish.  
You said once to me that every person has a price, do you still recall that? You said it in our shared Philosophy classroom, during the professor's lecture. I remember it.  
"Would you kill someone," you said, "for ten zene?"  
"No," I replied, distracted.  
"How about ten million."  
I paused before an answer in the negative, and you said,  
"See? You hesitated. Every person has their price. People would do anything for a little more. More power. More money. More youth, more life. Sickening, isn't it, but that's what separates us from the animals we care for. Always, a man lusts for more."  
Odd that it took me nearly fifty years to put that brilliant principal to use.  
Until later , I remain,  
Your old colleague,  
Doctor Gero  
  
******************* Acey: Hi! Well, you know what to do from here! *Man, do my fingers ache from this typing... carpal-tunnel syndrome, here I come.* =) Oh, well. The quote about the Old Guard was from "Gone with the Wind" (the book-- and yes, I did read it, and am probably one of the few people alive who didn't think it was boring). Just to clear that up, I don't own that epic. 


	3. Second Correspondence

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. Mr. Toriyama's got DBZ. Again, thanks for reviewing, Kelly Neptunus! I tried hard to keep the suspense going last chapter. I'm glad you enjoyed the last part. Me? Would I kill someone for ten millon? No.  
  
My dear _________, January 10, 760  
  
I forgot to add in the letter I wrote you last that I hoped your holidays were excellent. So here's a measure of cheer ten days late if you look at it from a New Year's standpoint, and sixteen days late if you're refering to Christmas. My own holidays went by so quickly I barely noticed. Yours had to be more satisfactory.  
While up late working a night or so ago I came across one of the books you wrote several years ago on genetics and such. It was at least thirty years old and most likely outdated, but while glancing through it I realized for the first time since college how brilliant you were and are. The presentation of the theories was stunning, no one ever did it better than you, and I want you to remember that. Don't consider it shameless flattery of an old man, consider it rightful praise from a friend. I'm telling you the truth.  
What did I say I would tell you? Oh, yes, but I can't go into the extensive detail I would like right now. I don't recall if you are performing any serious experiments during your month away, but I am, and it is doing quite nicely. "It" as in my experiment. No, I'm not crossing species (and don't know if you have, either, but with your morals I highly doubt it), just tinkering around with things, machinery, mostly. I'm hoping for better material to work with. You can only go so far with messes of microchips and metal, before you realize how pathetic that truly is in comparison to the organic-- but genetics, of course, was your field, not mine, and I'm not terribly efficient at it. However, my sixteenth experiment's going better than the first fifteen put together (more than that if you count all the myriad prototypes-- which I don't), and is nearly complete. I apologize for not telling you about it sooner, but I wasn't altogether sure if I had assembled it correctly. Thankfully, I did, and now all that I have left is to wire in the memory. Wish me luck.  
Your old colleague,  
Doctor Gero  
  
*********************************  
It was very strange, how after the first letter he simply plunged right in, taking for granted that she knew what he was talking about, and not seeming to realize how drop-dead boring the last few paragraphs were. Except for the compliments, but then everyone enjoys compliments directed solely at them. 'Poor Gero, he couldn't ever see that what interested him didn't interest all others.'   
She shook the thought off. Poor Gero? The man who had graduated college to become the standard mad scientist? 'No, Gero needs no pity,' she decided, 'and he won't get it from me.'   
'I've got to call the police. I've got to call them right now, before I do anything else.'   
'No, I can't!' something else inside her screamed. 'Not after all that, I can't just--'  
Her fingers closed on the next unopened letter.  
'All right. I'll be able to help the police effort better if I just read one more.' *********************************  
  
Author's Note: No, next chapter's not the last chapter, nor the chapter after that. I'm sorry for this one being so short in comparison to the other two, but I promise that the next few segments of "Letters" are going to be longer and, I hope, more entertaining. The best is yet to come, I promise. Well, you know what to do from here! -Acey 


	4. Third Correspondence, Part One

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own DBZ, lucky you.  
  
Author's Note: Now that "Retrospect" is finished (if you read it, please tell me if you think Seventeen's in character-- he'd better be after all the work I put into that fic), I have decided to devote most of my spare time to this fic. Beware of the frequent (as in near-daily-- I know, it's probably going to cause my premature death someday, but oh, well) updates. Note that I'm probably not going to be finished with this for at least two weeks in spite of this. Oh, and anyone who wishes to steal THIS IDEA in particular will answer to ME, for I will come to wherever you live all the way from Georgia (the state in the U.S., not the country), using whatever transportation I can afford (all right, so I'll probably be walking), and carrying my entire collection of Beckett DBZ magazines with which to bop you upside the head with, rendering you unconscious (I have a ton of DBZ magazines, so this is possible). Seriously, don't steal my ideas, plotlines, original characters, quotes, etc. THEY ARE MINE, and they will be mine forever. If sixty years from now I go on fanfiction.net on a whim, finding a tale about Gero writing letters to an old colleague, and the name under it is not Acey, then I'll still do what I already said I would (never mind that I'll be almost seventy-four years old... yikes).  
  
Now, the shoutouts:   
  
Kelly Neptunus: I'm really glad you like it so much! I promise, it does get better.  
  
Chuquita:All your questions will be answered in this chapter (my longest one to date-- I compared "Letters" to several other fics and realized that the first three chapters combined were shorter than a lot of people's first ones-- brevity, thy name is Acey).  
  
Darkness Angel: I'm happy you thought it was original. I don't normally take Gero's viewpoint on things like I'm doing on this fic, but it's an interesting change for me.  
  
Deadly Beauty: Thank you! I was really trying for suspense, especially in the second chapter.  
  
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for (I hope), the fourth installment of "Letters."  
  
'So he was the one,' the woman thought, 'the one that got involved with Red Ribbon.'  
She knew that one of the students from her year had due to the rumors around campus when she came back to Western Capital College after graduation to present a seminar, but had never heard a name put on the traitor. Now she knew, knew for sure. His criminal activities hadn't even stopped there; he'd told her himself in one of the letters that he was wanted, wanted for what he had done and what he was doing now. And he had thought she had known it from the beginning.  
Well, he'd been right. She wasn't the ambitious career girl anymore, she was an aging relic of the last of the lone, respectable scientists. Better than that, she still had her morals, but they were tinged with something she had picked up long before entering the halls of Western Capital College-- a gnawing, childlike curiousity to know what was next, mixed in with fascination. Gero, after all, had been her only real threat to valedictiorianship back at the old alma mater. It would be interesting to find out what this sixteenth experiment dealt with, exactly, very interesting.  
But even she, biased as she was toward Doctor Gero, knew that it could not be good, no matter the noble motives that he might have had at the beginning. Red Ribbon would have corrupted all that. Her 'old colleague', as he penned his farewell in every letter she'd read so far, had changed, was not the old colleague she once knew.  
She had had enough of pointless musing. Biting her lip, she tore the envelope open, pulling out the sheet of paper enclosed, and started to read. ********************************** My dear _________, January 30, 760  
Happy sixty-eighth birthday. Of course I remember it. It's the only birthdate besides my own that I ever bothered to memorize. I'm happy for you.  
The sixteenth experiment, unfortunately, is turning into a complete disappointment and waste of my time. No matter what I have tried these past few weeks, the android appears to feel the need only accomplish his first objective, which is an undeniable shame, considering he really is the best one I've come up with completely. Don't worry, I will continue with him later. Right now I have other plans to keep me from being too terribly unhappy at Sixteen's failure.  
In fact, I wondered after that why I was bothering with pure mechanics, and finally understood why you took up genetics as one of your main fields. It is too difficult, much too difficult, to bother creating your own devices totally. Why not improve on nature's work, instead of going against it?  
I did not mention this in my other letters because I was afraid that it would not work out, that they would attract someone's attention and escape. So I gave you the barest hints of it in my first letter-- remember what you told me? "Always, a man lusts for more."  
And that's what they're getting, the two that I found on the sixth. Juvenile delinquents, bikers, around or about the age of eighteen, wearing those simply terrible fashions that the young people wear these days-- heaven knows we couldn't have gotten away with that kind of clothing when we were their age-- at one of the clothing stores, one shopping, the other looking extraordinarily bored.  
Strangely enough, there was still a sense of nostalgia there. They were twins, a boy and a girl, identical except for hair color, which was cut in the same way for both-- in a part in the middle, hair down barely to the neck. It reminded me of how they used to do identical twins years ago, before the whole individuality idea started and people decided it would be better if they didn't have everything the same. Oh, the twins I met were not wearing the same thing, I don't mean that, but you could tell that they had the same hairstyle on purpose. You don't normally see twins (especially at that age) of the opposite gender that wear it alike.  
Anyway, dear, I investigated them further, watching them, seeing what they could do from a distance. They weren't martial artists (not that they looked like them), but they weren't slouches at fighting, that much I could tell right off the bat. All in all, fine specimens of the worst in adolescent parenting.  
The boy noticed me first, and told me in rather colorful language to quit staring at his sister and go away. His blonde sister looked up from her shopping spree for a second and nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with him. I smiled at the insult.  
"Tell me, son," (addressing the brother), "is there anything you want in particular? Anything at all?"  
He coldly replied that I was not his son and that if I didn't get out of his way that he would move me himself, no respect for his elders at all. There was a very cocky look in both of their faces, self-assuring, the type of teenagers that think they're going to live forever. Maybe they are.  
I tried again.  
"Anything? Longevity? Power? I can get you that. I can get both of you that quite easily."  
"You're nuts," the girl said, but she looked mildly interested (she had stopped selecting items from the clothing racks, at any rate), as did her twin. I had their attentions.  
"No. I merely know how. After all, people didn't believe there were such things as germs until the proof stared them in the face, now, did they? Why should you call me crazy," I paused, "when you don't know a thing about what I'm talking about?"  
The boy rolled his eyes and told his sister to come on, that they had better things to do with their time than deal with lunatics. She started to follow.  
"Wait," she said. "It's not like we have anything much to do. Tell us what you're playing at, old man."  
I knew from that point on that I had them.  
"It doesn't involve much," I said, watching both sets of pallid blue eyes narrow cynically. Cynics at eighteen, the generations just keep getting worse. I continued. "A few adjustments, some minor operations, and of course you would get paid quite well for it..."  
Something-- a sharp look of pain-- flashed across the girl's face. I realized in an instant that she could never afford the outfits she was picking out. Delinquent though she was, she still desired pretty things.  
Her brother studied me carefully, then glanced at his sister. He knew what she wanted.  
"How much?"  
At that moment, I thanked you for that brilliant, simple advice from the bottom of my heart.  
"Ten million zene." *************************************  
She threw down the letter in horror, only halfway through. The carefully-written words on the pages seemed to stare up at her, blue letters gazing into her dark green eyes from their new position at the foot of her narrow bed.  
She knew it, knew it without finishing the letter. He didn't have to spell it out for her. She had been a top scientist for too long not to know.  
'No, Gero, no,' she thought, like a chant. 'No... you didn't, you couldn't have.'  
She grabbed the letter again, scanning the date. January thirtieth, seven-sixty. A month ago today. A month--  
There was still time, she could still get them! Call the police, let them take it from here. They'd find the two, they'd find Gero, and then--  
Yes, the twins might even be all right! A little shook up, a little frightened, but otherwise unharmed! Cheered by the thought, she grabbed the envelope for the address. Yes, if she could just find that much, everything would be all right, everything.  
She held her breath as she turned it over, hoping for an instant that it would be there.  
  
Doctor Gero  
  
Doctor ______________  
121 Fletcher Street  
Western Capital  
  
Nothing more was written on the paper. No return address. 'Then how--'  
She understood it now, understood with full comprehension. He hadn't wanted her to write back. He had expected her to go to the police, expected it, and so, only wrote his name and title on the envelopes, every one of them.  
She straightened. 'No, it's not too late for them,' she thought, resolutely. 'No. I can still do one thing. One thing.'  
She jerked her old-fashioned phone out of its holder and stuck her finger in the zero hole, pulling it back to the stop. Then, quietly,  
"Operator, connect me to the Western Capital police." *************************************** Acey: I told you I was just getting started! Well, the next update should be soon, but in the meantime, you know what to do from here! 


	5. Interval, Phone Call

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer Poetry: I am poor. Don't sue me. 'Cause I don't own DBZ.  
  
Author's Note: Oh, yes, here I go with chapter five. I must be pretty psyched, as I just updated with chapter four a little while ago. Should I string you out and make you wait? Nah. I'm not that mean.  
  
The shoutout:   
  
Kelly Neptunus: Yay! Yes, everyone should know what's going to (if it hasn't already... ^_^ the only one who really knows is me) happen to the twins but the woman. I'm glad I'm keeping the suspense as high as I can.  
  
The apology: Sorry last chapter looked a little (okay, a lot) hacked up. I have to save all my files as text documents, so it doesn't always look correct. I promise that you won't see any more of that ridiculous stuff that "Text Only" does.  
  
And now, chapter five. I hope you enjoy it.  
  
The dispatcher that answered her call listened more understandably than most. He didn't have a clue who Gero was ("too young for that," she thought bitterly; he was only around twenty, at least from the sound of his voice), but he did pay attention to her story about the letters.  
"So, Miss--"  
"Doctor," she automatically corrected, never accustomed to a "Miss" from anyone but the cook and the maids who were soon to be fired for their abandonment of her home. "Doctor ________."  
She could almost see the recognition on the dispatcher's face from the other end of the telephone line.  
"Doctor _______? THE Doctor ________?"  
"Yes, yes," she snapped, wishing for once that she had chosen a normal profession, or at least had not become famous at her own.   
"You won all those awards when you were younger! You were in my science book back in high school!"  
Good gosh, she really was old.  
"Yes, I'm a geneticist--"  
The dispatcher suddenly recalled his post.  
"Oh, uh, well, M-- Doctor, oh, yeah, what exactly did this Gero man tell you in these letters he sent?"   
She exhaled, unaware that she was twirling her hair on her index finger, her old nervous habit that she had been intent on beating since the age of seventeen. Every attempt, unfortunately, had failed, and it was almost the only thing about herself that she had not eventually been able to discipline into obedience.  
"H-he's doing experiments. He's offered these twins a huge amount of money for participating in them, I think. They're supposed to-- to make you live longer and things like that. That's what he wrote, anyway."  
The dispatcher whistled lowly.  
"Crazy," he muttered. Then, he quietly said to the woman on the other line, "I'm sorry, Doctor, but we can't really verify that what he wrote you is true. It's not illegal to perform experiments, at least most of them, and--"  
"These are not legal," she snapped again. "I know they're not. Check your records to see if any twins are missing."  
"We have missing children all the time, Doctor," he replied, and his voice was tired, for he had been on the job since one in the afternoon, and it was close to eleven at night now. "I'm not authorized to do more than answer these calls and send a policeman over if need be. Would you like me to send you one, ma'am?"  
That question took no time to think.  
"No."  
"Then you're sure you'll be all right?"  
"Yes."  
"If you get more mail from this weirdo-- death threats, say--, please call immediately, and we'll get you someone. In the meantime, don't reply to any of his mail."  
She nodded, hung up, and muttered, bitterly to herself, "That isn't a problem. He didn't give a return address."  
  
**********************************************************************Acey: =) More on the way, and I really hope you like it. 


	6. Interval, Annual

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer Couplets: DBZ is not mine. That suits lawyers fine. Though if you take characters I make, You'll find you made a big mistake.  
  
The shoutouts: Kelly Neptunus: You've reviewed every chapter so far. Thanks for all that much-needed feedback. I really do appreciate it.  
  
Martina: I'm glad you like it so far. I'm trying my best with this chapter, so I hope you won't be disappointed.   
  
I don't know exactly what happened to my other reviewers (possibly they saw how fast I was updating, got scared, and ran away, thinking I was possessed with some creativity demon... nope, no creativity demon, sorry, just too much time on my hands), other than Darkness Angel... she's on vacation, and I hope she has a good time. Well, I'll keep updating (I don't get to go on vacation until late July, so I might as well update while I can, before school starts in August. Yep, school starts in August for me, darn it.). And now, chapter six.  
  
Two hours later, the woman was still awake, silent, nervous, watching the glowing crimson numbers change on the digital clock on her nightstand: 1:12, 1:13, 1:14. The older you got, the less you slept, at least that was what the studies showed, but that was the farthest reason for her insomnia now.  
She sat up, hearing the familiar sound of her cook's graceless steps upstairs. The cook normally got to bed late, mainly because the only television shows she ever watched (and could get away with watching without a request for her to do something for her mistress-- the truth was, and always had been, that the aging doctor used her cook for odd jobs more often than she'd ever used the maids for the work) were the late-night variety. The woman tried to make sure that the volume of the television set was turned as low as possible, but tonight she would have welcomed the noise. Tonight, of course, the cook had been polite and remembered to keep it down so as to not awaken her.  
The door suddenly flooded with light, and she saw the matronly cook standing outside it.  
"Cook! I--"  
"Couldn't sleep well, Miss? I can get you that insomnia stuff--"  
"Quite all right," she said, almost snapping. When she realized the harshness of her tone, she paused and said apologetically, "No, I'm fine, really. I just-- just go on to sleep, Cook."  
The cook nodded and treaded to her own room, closing the door behind her. 'Odd old gal,' she thought, and half a smile came to her lips. 'Smart people like that usually are kind of strange, so into their work-- that Gero that wrote her all those letters probably isn't much different. She doesn't like stupid people, that's for sure.' A new thought came to the cook's mind. 'Maybe that man was an old beau of hers.'   
She almost laughed at the idea as soon as she thought it. Miss, have a boyfriend? Flat-out crazy. Oh, the cook knew that her employer had been quite a lovely little thing in her younger years-- pretty, if only in a feyish way-- but still, the doctor, having a love interest? Uh-uh. The prim lady was devoted, mind, body, and soul, to her work as the leading geneticist of her time. Nothing that the cook knew of could stand in the Miss' way about that. Nothing.  
With the absurd notion of her mistress in love with something other than genes and DNA cells in her mind's eye, the cook left for her own room, smiling to herself. **********************************************************************  
  
As soon as the woman heard the door of the cook's room close, she flicked on the imitation Tiffany lamp that was perched on the nightstand, next to the clock. She blinked in the soft glow of the lamplight for a second or two to get her eyes adjusted, then went for the bookshelf that stood by her bed. Fumbling in the still half-dark through the rows of novels, historical documentaries, and so on (the light bulb in the lamp severely needed changing), she came across the thing she was looking for-- a hardbound azure book with the date 711 on the cover engraved in gold lettering. Her annual for year two of college. Her yearbook.  
711-- she had started school early, first arriving at Western Capital College at the age of seventeen, mid-September, 709. It hadn't been until sophomore year that she had met him, which was odd since she had known of him for years, heard people mutter in the hallways after class that between her and Gero, there was no telling who would be giving the valedictorian speech at graduation. She'd ignored that rumor that there could be someone smarter than her in her year, ignored it and worked herself half to death in all subject areas, determined that she, not some Gero nerd, would be the valedictorian of the graduating class of 713.   
Funny, she had met him in such ordinary circumstances as well. One of the freshmen had dropped her platter of lunch-- spaghetti and meatballs-- in the middle of the cafeteria, all over her blouse, all over the just-cleaned tile floor, and in front of practically the whole school. The woman (well, back then she was more a career girl than a woman, as Gero had pointed out in one letter), seeing the embarrassment in the poor girl's teary eyes, immediately got out of her chair and went over to help. She was on her knees, armed with a few paper towels, trying to calm the kid down and wipe up the mess at the same time (difficult-- the freshman was practically hysteric with crying), when she turned and saw that someone behind her was handing the girl a handkerchief to dry her eyes.  
He was of normal enough height, irises a frozen cerulean blue. His hair was light brown and slightly curly, which when topped off by the circular glasses resting on his nose, gave him the standardized appearance of nerd, Class A.   
The woman couldn't have cared less. **********************************************************************  
Flipping through the faded annual, she winced as she saw the people she'd wanted to forget-- the cheerleaders, the jocks, the idiots who tried to look on her paper during exams. She saw herself in a few pictures besides the ordinary mug shot-- she'd won some awards and things like that-- and she looked all right in most of them, barring the one taken when she was in lab wearing super-thick goggles and gardening gloves. She saw a few of the people who had made it in their fields, and made it big-- herself, for one, and Doctor Tanner, Mister I'll-contradict-all-scientific-theories-proven-in-the-world-to-be- so himself. Taylor, who'd played the stock market and gotten rich. Rhi Williams, who'd become a champion figure skater.  
'Gero, who'd become a mad scientist,' a voice said in her mind when she saw his own cameo a page later.  
She ignored it, flipping through again until she found it, the page with the autographs. The woman had only a few, thanks to old memories of how the dumb blondes in junior high had written things like "I really admire you because of your intelligence," and then misspell intelligence. In college, she had stuck to only letting a few people sign, those that could spell correctly and those she appreciated sharing classes (or, in the cases of her roommates, sharing a dormitory). That had left only four signatures: Tanner, two of her roommates (the two that were conscientious about living space and allowed her enough room to put her stuff, occasionally let her use the showers first, and other small things like that that made the days start a lttle cheerier), and him, of course. Gero.  
By the end of winter break that sophomore year they had become study partners, neither really needing help but each enjoying the other's company. Their relationship had never gone any further than that of friends, but still, the woman could count on Gero to be there for her.  
After college they hadn't seen each other again. The woman had gone on to become the famed geneticist she'd always aspired to be, and Gero--  
'had gone on to be a madman passing as a doctor.'  
She slammed the book down bitterly, not even looking at the autographs. Her Gero was gone. Her Gero, the only man she'd ever even considered having as a b--  
'Stop it,' she said to herself, 'stop it, you fool. He's gone crazy, and he wrote to you because of that, not in spite of that. He wrote to you because you were his friend, and he's so sadistic that he's telling you in every letter about the horrible things he's doing.'  
That settled, she turned and put the annual back on the shelf, turning it around so the spine of the book faced backwards so she didn't have to see it, and remember. She absently pulled the bedcovers off and went into bed, mind still alert, lamp light still on.  
And the rest of the letter she had stopped reading in her hand as she propped up the pillow to finish it.  
  
Acey: To make up for my lack of updates (well, for me two days is awhile to go without updating-- unlike the people who write maddeningly wonderful stuff and refuse to update except for once a month-- you know who you are),the next chapter will be out shortly. =) 


	7. Third Correspondence, Part Two

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer Haiku: DBZ is not [line break if "Text Only" is too dumb to put one]  
  
mine, which is extremely sad [line break " " " " " " " " "]  
  
for me, not for you. [line break "" " " " " " " "]  
  
Oh, yes, and the story mentioned in this chapter is not mine, either, so don't try to sue me on that one.  
  
The shoutouts (reviewers who ran away, I told you last time that I have no creativity demon ^_^):  
  
Kelly Neptunus: Don't worry, your curiosity will be satisfied little by little, in these next chapters.  
  
evil b---- monster of doom: I never thought of that! That's a really great idea!  
  
Chuquita: Good point! Does she know? Well, have to read to find out!  
  
And now, the seventh chapter (man, if I keep this up, this is going to be an epic-- well, sort of, in terms of the number of chapters. I don't know about the quality, that's for the reviewers to decide. I just write the stuff.) of the fic known as "Letters."  
  
The second half of the third letter he wrote to her read as follows:  
  
It was quite easy after that, quite easy. They had a fair amount of questions-- the safety of the experiments and so forth-- but I assured them it was fine, quite fine. In fact, I was surprised they weren't more suspicious.   
"Wait," said the girl, "how do we know you're not planning on killing us?"  
How, indeed. I smiled a bit at the question.  
"If I really had the desire to kill you, I would have done it by now, don't you think, dear?"  
The boy started on the word "us."  
"You're not getting into this, Sis," he said quietly. "I'll give you the money and you can--"  
"No," she said, and her voice was firm, pale blue eyes suddenly flashing. "If you're going to have the experiments done, then I am too." She turned to me. "Did you say ten million for the both of us, or ten million each?"  
"Stay out of this!" her brother demanded. "I'll come back after it's over, I promise, so then--"  
"Ten million each," I said, as I watched her brother argue with her, downright beg her to change her mind, to decide not to come. The old nostalgia returned as I saw their dispute-- the Biblical Jacob and Esau, these two were most definitely not. Odd to see twins that close in the age of the proud dysfunctional family.  
"Then it's settled," she said, and it was.  
  
They came willingly along out of the clothing store, following me to my headquarters nowadays, namely a-- no, that would be telling you too much, and I'm the first to admit that we don't know each other as well as we used to. I know that you would not betray any confidences back at the alma mater, but times change. People change. I've even changed-- but you knew that already. It would be unsafe to disclose that bit of information, for some truly are not to be trusted with anything. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean you, but let me tell you what I am talking about when I say that, so you won't get the wrong idea.  
I don't remember the name of the story exactly, but I do recall most of the plot of the little tale. I believe it was called "After Twenty Years," or something similar to that. Anyway, it was about two very close friends that had promised that they would return to this one place, no matter what happened to them, twenty years later. After they made the said pact, they went their own separate ways entirely, neither hearing word from the other-- until that exact day they'd said they would return.  
You may think you know where this is going. Unless you've read that short story, however, you've got no idea, none at all, which is certain proof of how good that author was.  
They find each other in the designated area, each sure that the other had forgotten, coming close to not even recognizing each other, until one yells out his friend's name. Twenty years-- they have a good time, telling about what they've done in the past two decades. They are both quite startled at how time has altered one another's appearances-- when last they met, they were in the very prime of their lives.  
I can't recall what the other friend was called, but I do remember that one was referred to as Jerry, and I think, though I'm not entirely sure, that the other was named Morris. For the sake of continuity I'll call him that, regardless of whether it's the correct name. Their dialogue goes somewhat along the lines of this:  
"Jerry! You remember me, don't you? I'm Morris, the one that promised I'd come--"  
"After twenty years! Of course I remember you-- I thought you'd forgotten, I would have forgotten myself, if--"  
"Oh, don't worry, Jerry. It was a promise, and I intended to keep it, just like you did. I'm sorry for being so late."  
"No, it's fine!"  
All goes well, and they see for themselves what a difference twenty years can make in how one looks.  
"Almost didn't recognize you, Morris! I didn't think-- wait, you weren't this tall last we met!"  
"Eh, I grew a bit after twenty. This place sure has changed, hasn't it?"  
"You're not kidding. Why, back then it was nothing but an old boom town, about to be closed up, and now-- well, look at it!"  
This short story was written many years ago, so the references are old.  
"Oh, yes. Twenty years is a long time."  
"Sure is. Seems like yesterday-- but you go on first. So, Morris, tell me what you know."  
Morris starts in on a discourse about all he's done, mentioning the railroad and a dozen outdated things like that.  
Midway through, as he's talking, Jerry looks at him, really looks at him. The smile disappears from his face, and a cold look replaces it.  
"Twenty years is a long time," he says, standing up slowly, "but not long enough to turn a Roman nose into a pug!"  
"That's right, 'Skullface' Jerry, that's right. Hands up, we have you surrounded. Took us a long time to find you, but we got you cornered, didn't we, cornered like the skunk you are. But don't worry-- Morris sent you his regards."  
A piece of paper is in his hand, reading something like:  
"'Chief, this is the only place you'll be able to find him. I didn't have the heart to do it myself, so I sent a plainclothes man to do the job. Morris."'  
Twenty years-- in that time, one had become a criminal, the other, a lawman.  
And the lawman betrayed his friend.  
Doctor Gero **********************************************************************  
She finished the letter at 1:40, carefully folding it back into the envelope, stacking it with the other two letters she had completed reading.  
She'd gotten the message, gotten it loud and clear. Gero didn't trust her farther than any stranger on the block, in fact, he trusted her less. He'd twisted the parable to make it sound like Morris was committing a sin by doing exactly what he was supposed to do, turn in the criminal, no matter who it was. Yet it was Jerry who was in the wrong the whole way through.  
Jerry was wrong, didn't he see that? Perhaps he did, but all the same, the so-called betrayal had evidently struck a chord with the other doctor. Now he was more doubtful on whether she could keep her mouth shut than ever. Before he'd thrown out hints, or seemed to, at any rate, by the tone of the letters. She couldn't really decipher them but knew they were there. She wasn't gifted at playing detective. He'd known that, which was probably why he'd put the clues in the first place, to fascinate and vex her like Tantalus in the ancient myth, doomed to stand in water to his neck and be unable to drink it, she was doomed to puzzle through his letters and never figure out what he meant.  
Fine, then, she'd play along. If he didn't think that she wouldn't tell, then she'd prove him right as rain. No reason to do otherwise. He'd done enough to incriminate himself without dragging her into this secrecy. It was unfair, totally unfair of him to do this to her.  
She didn't know of any people who'd believe her right offhand. Heck, she'd already tried the police, and that had been worse than no help, almost. She'd been known around the scientific field especially as the much-overdone lone scientist-- that'd probably be on her grave, not that it was helping her any now. She'd made people aware of her through her own achievements, never helping anyone else with theirs. Unwittingly, she'd shut off the very people who could help her out now.   
It was too much to mull over late at night. She turned off the lamp and reverted to restless sleep. Acey: More to come... my fingers are so sore... well, you know what to do! 


	8. Comprehension

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned DBZ, why is this on a site for fanfiction? *thinks* Maybe it's because I don't own DBZ, eh?  
  
Author's Note: Since I am likely going to veg out on "The Twilight Zone" marathon (something I do every July and New Year's... I always miss a few of the episodes, anyway) Wednesday (in the U.S.), I'll warn you that tommorow probably won't have an update. Rest assured that I am very much alive.  
  
The shoutouts (maybe I'm posting chapters a little too quickly):  
  
Kelly Neptunus: Thanks for all your reviews and encouragement to continue. My updates would not be nearly as fast without it.  
  
Teenager-Videl: Glad you like it!  
  
And now, chapter eight. I really hope you enjoy it.  
  
She woke up the next morning at seven o'clock, prompt, determined. The cook had just put breakfast on the table when the woman strode into the kitchen, visibly tired, but otherwise her normal, slightly irritable morning self.  
"Good morning, Miss. Did you sleep well?"  
"No, but there's nothing you can do about it now, so don't worry about it. Let's see..."  
The woman searched the pantry, forgetting again that that was the job her cook should be doing.  
"Do we have any hot chocolate left, Cook?" she asked from halfway inside it. The pantry was so narrow it was hard to enter, another of the many mundane reasons the cook did not immediately remind her mistress that it was her duty to find the things inside it-- too much work, and plus the cook was not slender enough to get into it comfortably.  
"No, Miss. You drank it all before you left."  
"That's right," she said, "and you don't like the stuff, so you didn't buy any more. Well, see if there's orange juice."  
The cook sighed as she obediently stuck her head into the refrigerator door.  
"Yes, Miss." **********************************************************************  
Breakfast was pleasant enough to the cook's untrained eye. Her mistress went to get the paper while the beignets were frying, and ran back in a mad rush to see if she could finish the daily crossword before they were done. She was a bit disappointed when she found that in her hurry to finish, she had missed one by a letter the second after the cook had removed the pastries from the deep fryer.  
"My brain doesn't work as well as it used to, Cook."  
"Your brain works faster than most folks' do in a year, Miss," the cook said in a rare display of true respect.  
The woman laughed harshly.  
"Only because they don't bother using them for more than they have to. Most people are so lazy that they only do the minimum in life. Therefore, they get the minimum out of life. Sad, isn't it?"  
"I suppose, Miss. I never thought about it like that."  
No, of course the cook wouldn't. The cook was an ordinary, sensible woman, able but not exemplary, content with her life the way it was. It was people like the cook who unconsciously kept society the way it was for so long, with their unchanging ways and customs, only to be thrust aside first when revolution, any revolution, would eventually come.  
"Any good news in the paper, Miss?"  
The woman looked at her cook sideways. The cook didn't noticed the rimmed purple shadow underneath the mistresses' forest colored eyes, and if she had, would have likely attributed it to the lack of sleep the night before, never probing further to see the reason for the insomnia. The poor cook was like that, eternally nonjudgemental, forever silent about whatever she saw-- if, indeed she saw anything-- below the surface. That was what made her Cook.  
"No, not unless you count that Capsule Corporation has invented some new, handier version of the capsule, or what-have-you." She set down her orange juice and sighed. "Doctor Briefs must be getting old. He's four or five years younger than me. At any rate, he should be retiring and handing over the reins of the company to his darlingly brilliant daughter soon."  
The cook nodded, absently wondering what had been causing her mistresses' obvious dislike for the Capsule Corporation's industry for so long. But only for a moment or two-- the cook had been wondering that for years, and so it would be out of her mind now if it weren't for the occasional bitter remark like the one she had just given.  
"I think I'll stay in the lab today, Cook," she said after she had polished off the last French doughnut and folded the newspaper. "Heaven only knows how much fungus lies there in the wake of my recent absence."  
The cook ignored the sarcastic melodrama and watched her employer leave the kitchen. 'Geniuses.' **********************************************************************  
She did not go to the lab. Instead she went straight back into her bedroom, dug out the unopened stack of his letters, and tore each one open randomly, unceremoniously, dumping the contents in a pile as she called the cook from downstairs to not come in, that she'd found the remnants of an old chemistry experiment in there, a plausible enough excuse, considering.  
She counted the envelopes she'd just ripped apart at the edge. Three. Three more letters, two handwritten pages a letter, six pages. Elementary math, to be sure, but still. Smoothing out the papers, leaving them neatly on an embroidered pillow, she set them aside and went back to the pile that she had already read the night before, reading them one more time in a futile attempt to understand what the man was hinting at. A sentence caught her eye:  
"'Why not improve on nature's work, instead of going against it?'"  
The woman stared at the sentence, half-expecting a lightning bolt straight from mythology to shoot her down with inspiration, with at least a milligram of comprehension. None came.  
She tried again, finding another sentence, another letter:  
"'You can only go so far with messes of microchips and metal before you realize how pathetic that truly is in comparison to the organic-- but genetics, of course, was your field, not mine, and I'm not terribly efficient at it.'"  
'Well,' she thought, 'of course he knew that genetics was always my field. The only thing that kept him from being valedictorian himself was a low A in genetics. If it had been a few points higher, we would've tied. He had the second-highest genetics score in the class as it was.'  
Comparison to the organic... that sounded like a poorly-done sci-fi flick. Why, if she didn't know better, she'd've...  
"'A few adjustments... some minor operations...'"  
What the--  
She knew. She knew. Adjustments, operations, genetics, microchips. The woman could have slapped herself for not figuring it out sooner, for stupidly skimming through the letters until something interested her, when every answer-- every answer-- stared her straight in the face.  
"You counted on this, didn't you, Gero," she said quietly, controlling her voice so it didn't alarm the cook, looking at the letters as Moses probably looked at the statue of Baal-- with anger, hatred, as though she was trying to burn them-- burn Gero, too-- with nothing but her eyes. "You counted on this. You knew me so well, knew how I would react in every situation. You knew that I don't really read letters. You knew that I speed through them. I told you how I read through the Western Capital College acceptance letter three times before I realized that it was an acceptance letter. I told you."  
She bent her head low. For a second something passed across her face, a look of an eighteen-year-old college student whose only interest were things in microscopes that linked together in odd patterns to make you who you were, predispose you to disease, and so on, the look of a hopeful, ambitious girl who'd finally found someone to pin those childish hopes upon.   
Then the moment passed and she was the aging lone scientist again.  
"Gero, I told you too much." 


	9. More Correspondence

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: There aren't enough ways to say this-- I don't own DBZ. So sad, so sad.  
  
Author's Note: Happy Fourth of July to everybody.   
  
Shoutouts:  
  
Kelly Neptunus: I'm a updating! I'm a updating!  
  
Sailor J-chan: You read that story? Really? (I think it was in my Literature book a few years ago, at any rate, I've always remembered it.)  
  
And now, installment number nine. I hope you like it.  
  
The cook pulled a plain apple cake from the oven and sighed. Two hours, and her mistress had not come downstairs from that laboratory of hers once, not even to get a bite to eat. It was a shame, and besides, one of the few things her mistress enjoyed intensely that the cook baked was her apple cakes. Most other menu items would be eaten without complaint, but without much appreciation, either.  
Cook, in all simple honesty, figured that the cake would get the old doctor back to her normal, slightly snappish, overpaying self. She thought that the pretense of her laboratory work was her excuse to take a nap, and indeed it had been in times past.  
'Poor Miss, not enough sleep last night,' and she truly pitied the scientist for being so foolish as to not have taken the "stuff," as the cook referred to anything and everything in a medicine bottle, for insomnia. 'Poor, poor old gal.' **********************************************************************  
The second that she realized Gero's intent she wanted to burn every letter.  
The next few seconds after that she was not so sure, doubtful, nearly, of whether that was the right way to go. After all, she would have no proof if she set the little stack of looseleaf paper on fire.  
'Burning the evidence, eh?' a small voice whispered in her mind. 'Burning it to shreds so your friend can get off scot free, is that it, Doctor _______? Guilty of omission, my friend, guilty, guilty, guilty. What a terrible final act (you're getting up in years, even you should have realized that by this time-- there's no more a philosopher's stone now than there was before you were born, however you try denying it) for the woman beloved as the last image Earth had to offer of the decent, solitary little scientist in the white lab coat and goggles! Terrible, terrible, isn't it, ________?'   
"Stop it," she muttered. "Stop it."  
'I'll go find somebody. Somebody's got to believe me. Somebody.'  
"Miss?"  
"Cook, I--"  
"Miss," the cook called again from the foot of the steps. "I know you said you were going to be in there for the day, but I thought you might like your mail."  
Cook, confound her decent soul, was only trying to help her lonely mistress. The reply she got was the worst since the elderly lady found that the cook had not separated the lights from the darks in the laundry several years before.   
"No, I do not want my mail! I don't ever want my mail, do you understand? No more mail."  
'Old gal's gone crazy,' the cook thought but kept the opinion to herself. Ah, well, no serious harm done. Misses' eccentricities could be tracked in the cook's mind to too much scientific work and not enough free time. The cook thought that science had driven her slightly mad. 'Poor thing.' **********************************************************************  
'Got to do something. Got to tell someone. Got to--'  
Wait. She had forgotten the hints he'd left in the other letters, and she still had not opened them all. If he'd implied things in them-- things like where he was-- then she could prove it. She could prove it, and tell someone, and then they'd have to believe her, just have to, just have to, and then--  
"I'm sorry, Cook. That was foolish of me. Please, I want my letters." 


	10. Fourth Correspondence

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: Mr. Toriyama owns DBZ. I am not Mr. Toriyama, in case you couldn't tell.  
  
Shoutouts:  
  
Kelly Neptunus: You're welcome for updating. Thanks for getting me back into writing this. I probably wouldn't have gotten even this far with this fic without all your encouragement, and that's the truth.  
  
Loony Lovegood: Your penname's neat (poor Luna, people think she's crazy =( )! I don't normally do (or read) OCs either (hector, I have enough problems trying to keep the real characters in character! I can't worry about characters I make up!), but with this fic I had to. I'm glad you liked the character of the Doctor. Most smart people are a tad on the strange side (and she's no exception-- neither am I from what my friends say-- but they're stranger [one of them is trying to pass a Squirrel Liberation Act -_-, but when I tried to convince her of the necessity for a Robot Liberation Act, she said no way], so I'm in good company.). And in response to the questions-- you'll find out in the next few installments, including this one (I can't give it away, wouldn't be fair!).  
  
Apology: This chapter would've been out two days ago were it not for the fact that I kept getting those cruddy "server busy" messages every time I tried to get on ff.net. For all they've said about how they're reducing those messages, they are NOT. -_- I tried a solid twenty times to get on, to no avail. But I bear with the system, no matter how I hate it.  
  
Now, for your enjoyment and entertainment, chapter ten of the acclaimed (eh, what am I saying?) fic "Letters." As always, I hope you like it very much.   
There were no more new letters from Gero, a fact that the woman wasn't fully convinced of until she went outside to the mailbox herself, checking around it as well. Only the three old ones remained, and these-- well, these she would be sure to read thoroughly. It could-- it had to-- make a difference.  
"Miss?"  
The woman silently cursed her cook for her interruptions, well-intended as they were.  
"Cook! I told you I am going to stay in the lab today!"  
"I thought you'd like some apple cake, Miss. Should I bring it in?"  
"No. I'm very busy now. I'll get it later."  
'Not even a thank you,' the cook thought, bitter mood returning. 'But when she pays so well, you take what you can get.'  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
My dear _________, February 6, 760  
  
My new experiments with the twins are going quite successfully from a medical standpoint, though I daresay that they will be less than happy about them than I am; the experiments could have some unpleasant consequences if they were expecting to come out of my lab as they came into it. I suspect, however, that they will find that the end more than justifies the means in their cases, should I complete their reprogramming. I fear I probably won't, at least, not any time soon. It's a tedious process, very tedious, and you ought to know that by now.  
I tire of merely intimating things to you. It gets a tad boring, even for me, to keep hinting of my plans, a hint here, a more blatant one there, until at last I expect to hear the police car's siren as I write this, but none comes, none comes. I know you were never the type to do any detective work besides trying to figure out how to correct someone's defective gene (and I wouldn't count that if I were you), but I know you can do better than this! You're causing me to lose faith in the intelligence you've displayed for the world to see, and I truly wish you wouldn't. After all, I can admit to you freely now that you were the only person I ever admired, before or since the alma mater, and now that I've told you, it doesn't make a bit of difference. What a pity.  
But I keep on, for you. Let's make this game of mine harder. I need a game, a small, daring diversion, what with all the time I will so soon have on my hands (and the twins will have as well, whether they wanted it or merely wanted the money I promised-- they'll need diversions, too). I'll send you only two letters more. You have two letters left to discover where I am and what I'm doing. How's that for an ultimatum? Far different from the old school term papers, isn't it, but the costs of misunderstanding are higher than simply a failing grade and a GPA drop. Two people's lives are at stake-- lives as they are now, at least, and if you lose, dear, billions more will soon follow.  
I still believe in you; you'll get it, I know you will. Good luck.  
  
Your old colleague, Doctor Gero  
  
Acey: How's that for an update? =) The best is coming now! 


	11. Fifth Correspondence

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Valley Girl Disclaimer: Like, I don't, like own DBZ, like, 'kay?  
  
Acey (rolls eyes after rereading disclaimer): Originality. Sheer originality.  
  
Shoutouts:  
  
Kelly Neptunus: The server was like that with you, too? Hmm. Now I know it wasn't just me...  
  
Nikki Knight: I'm glad you like it. The idea of communication (albeit one-sided) by letters in an electronic world is a neat one.  
  
Anyway, here we go with chapter eleven. Wait a second, chapter eleven? I never thought I'd get past four chapters, let alone eleven... well, enjoy.  
  
'Two more letters,' she thought savagely as she bit into a piece of apple cake five minutes later, 'two more letters left to figure out.'  
The cook had been adamant with the woman. She'd yelled from the stairs after she had finished the fourth letter that Miss had to get something to eat, and she had made apple cake, Miss had to eat-- oh, the words infuriated the woman. Cook was nicest and most understanding (or at least she thought she was; she had no idea what was really going on with her mistress, never did) when her mistress was tiredly irritated. All the help only made it worse on the aging doctor's nerves.  
"How's the cake, Miss? Should I put any glaze on it?"  
"No. It's fine," she said shortly, quickly destroying any of Cook's hopes for praise. The cook ignored it.  
"Would you like anything to go along with it, Miss? There's some ice cream in the fridge that I could--"  
"I'm fine. Let me go back to my lab."  
The cook shrugged and mutely took the woman's plate.  
"It's your house, Miss."  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
My dear ___________, February 13, 760  
  
I do hope you have at least half of my intentions understood by now. Be a dear and disregard the slightly ominous, bragging nature of my previous letter. How am I to know if my plans don't go up in chemistry lab smoke as I speak, after all? The dampness here may make everything go awry. But I am quite sure of my calculations. If I fail now, then it's going to be because you figured it all out in time and told the right person, most probably. If I know you like I used to, I'll wager that if you find out too late, you'll just think of some other way to avoid this catastrophe to be unleashed. You're resourceful enough to do that.  
Or better yet, why not find a smart young employee of that Capsule Corporation that you despise to do so for you? We are getting up in years, and time was only on your side in college. Back then you didn't give a care if anything or anyone was on your side. You were going to do what you wanted to do, the world could fall apart and you wouldn't mind terribly as long as it didn't interfere with what you were trying to accomplish. You had such a lack of interest in others then. We were the same in that respect, aloof, separate. I don't know if we are now.  
Anyway, dear, before I close this letter I want to tell you of how I am faring with the twins. I dind't catch their names, and they won't remember them if the drugs I'm giving to them work, but experiments Seventeen and Eighteen will do now. As doubtless you know, I haven't the desire to give them any of the twenty million promised. If all goes well, they'll get more than all the money in the world can buy, regardless. Think, a literal fountain of youth at a person's fingertips if they're willing to accept what comes along with that. Not only that, power. People have killed for power, be it the power that comes with excessive wealth and the influence following such, or the simple power of brute strength; it doesn't matter an iota. The outcome is the same, always the same. People fear those in power, regardless of whether they hate or, indeed, are planning to overthrow those rulers. They fear them, not only for what they really can do to them but also what they could in their wildest nightmares do to them. People fear the unknown. That is why the scientist was persecuted in early days, why the doctor was accused of black magic, no matter if he was as religious as the Pope. The unknown is always worse to one's mind.  
I am digressing. You must excuse that. Yet what does one want? Never does a person put someone else first on his long list of unfulfilled desires, never. He wants a long life-- and he's specific in this, he wants to have a long life and be in the prime of it throughout. As I said, he wants power, to be respected, feared, even. He wants to be in control. He doesn't want a boring job at the bottom of his place of work. He wants to be the chief executive officer, calling all the shots from his spacious office handsomely decorated in mahogany, with a lovely secretary dutifully typing up his reports and such. He wants, also, to not be alone in these wonderful endeavors.  
Do you see how faulty this way of thinking is? Like it or not, he can't have all of those things at once. Simply being the president of a company makes him lonely, at least at his company. Those lower on the scale don't enjoy talking to those higher up, the rich people, because they seem (whether or not they are or not) pretentious, aware of their massive assets, while they are struggling to get by. And longevity creates its own problems. Who would knowingly marry someone who'll outlive them a hunedred, even a thousand years? Control only goes so far without being mis- or overused, and then people hate you for it. The twins won't exactly be happy when and if they find out what I've done and am doing-- but I'll say one thing, the twenty million zene will be the least of their worries then.  
So, if one can't have all of what he wants at once, what does one do? What can one do? My humble enough suggestion is to go ahead and get what you can have at a particular time and forget the rest, penalties attached. I will be giving that brother and sister half of what I've listed above: incredibly longer lifespan, power in one sense guaranteed, and the other, optional. Respect? No, fear, and fear can be better than respect at getting things done in my experience. Control? What kind of control would a cyborg programmed for destruction have of his or her own actions, without a conscience to bother speaking of? For if you haven't understood what I'm doing thus far, you won't, ever, and your reputation as brilliant has dropped considerably in my mind. I can't put it more clearly as to what I am trying to accomplish now, dear, and rest assured I am not going to bother spelling out where I am now that I have wound up telling you of my intents.  
To never be alone was another desire, but like it or not, if only one of the twins survives these experiments or one of them is deactivated or destroyed, the other will be as alone as anyone can imagine, unfortunately.   
But enough on that subject. The point is that I doubt the two will hug my neck when they realize what they are. At the very least I expect a large amount of most colorful swearing and several things in my lab to be broken, provided they don't realize how much strength they have upon awakening. At the most I can imagine my murder, the first out of billions soon to occur, provided...  
Provided you don't manage to stop me, ever. One more letter, dear, and we'll find out if you can. Your old colleague,  
  
Doctor Gero  
  
********************************************************************** 


	12. Interval, Groceries

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer Logic: Acey was born several years after Dragon Ball Z started. Therefore, she could not have been the one who created Dragon Ball Z. Also, since she was never wealthy enough to buy anything of high value at all, it is highly improbable that she owns DBZ now. It borders on impossible, in fact, and is at the very least extremely unlikely.  
  
Author's Apology: When the workers were messing with the road on my street (something they've been doing every summer since about 1973-- never have gotten finished), they accidentally (I hope) cut the phone wires. I couldn't update until the phone company came to fix it-- a whole day later. I hate you, phone company. The shoutouts:  
  
Loony Lovegood: I'm not terribly observant, either. The same friend pushing the Squirrel Liberation Act claims to be observant, yet does not realize for weeks at a time when I am carrying a different lunchbox to school. -_- It irritates me to no end... no, not too much plot development last chapter. Unhappy ending? I can't say without spoiling it all. Gero is a jerk, but at least he's careful about it. I don't ever do much with the tough-to-write-about-yet-often-badly-written-about characters, because they've been done over and torn apart so much it's tough to stand seeing the summaries sometimes, much less reading the actual fics, especially when they're romances (hence I spend my time writing in the androids section). I always did like apple cake, too. Ducks? They need protection!  
  
Kelly Neptunus: Gero is a very cold and evil man. That's what makes him Gero. I'm very happy that you like "Letters" so much. (I hope I lived up to the promise I made that it was going to get more entertaining back several chapters ago!)  
  
Chuquita: I'm glad you found "Letters" again! I was about to tell you about the new chapters, but you found them before I could.  
  
Manda-Chan: I am very glad that you enjoy these fics! Don't worry, I plan to continue writing 17 stuff, and this fic as well.  
  
DoraMouse: I always thought that there had to be quite a bit of monopolizing going on with Capsule Corp. for it to be the huge company that it was. I appreciate you saying that the police call was authentic-- the woman really has almost nothing to go by. It would be very interesting for her to see Sixteen or something, you're right. The fact that we know so much about the woman, but not even her first name, was always one of the things I liked best about this fic. I'm very happy that you could tell that I spend a lot of time with "Letters," both with the disclaimers and the chapters.  
  
And now, part twelve of the semi-epic "Letters." As always, I sincerely hope you enjoy it.   
  
She'd read the fifth letter twice now. Twice, once at the speed of a normal fifth-grader, once at a pace rivaling that of the top speed-reader's. Nothing came up that she didn't already know. He was being careful.  
The woman had gone back downstairs, letter still in hand, her cook quietly washing the Bundt cake pan and measuring cups, seemingly not noticing her prescence. The woman liked it that way.  
"New people moving in across the street, Miss."  
Cook, for all her pretenses, noticed more than she was ever truly credited for.  
"Who?" her mistress said, distracted, rereading the letter as she spoke.  
The cook stopped scrubbing entirely and leaned halfway out the kitchen window. Her reply was succinct and to the point.  
"Idiots."  
The woman folded the letter and chuckled.  
"First impressions can be quite decieving, Cook."  
"You look at them and see if I'm wrong," the cook said defensively, pointing.  
Letter still in hand, she glanced outside.  
"See them, Miss? There they are, the ones out--"  
"Cook, I see them."   
It was a couple, fresh out of college, and from the way they were holding on to each other as the movers carried their furniture into the house, probably newlyweds. The woman watched in amusement as the man awkwardly carried his wife into the threshhold.  
"Well, Miss?"  
"They're not idiots. They're just young."  
"Not much difference," the cook replied coldly, scouring the pan. "Not much at all, Miss."  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
She would have shrugged it off and started on the last letter if the Cook had not been in such a bad mood the rest of the day. The young couple had irked the poor cook somehow, and from then on her responses to the woman's remarks were sullen, clipped. Cook had been slow about making dinner as well. When asked about the delay, the ill-mannered response was that the woman needed to buy more food, she couldn't cook with what was still in the pantry. The woman held her tongue about the matter and went back upstairs, put away the fifth letter, and emerged with an aircar capsule. She tried to hand it to her.  
"You go on, Miss. I'll tell you what to get."  
'The end's in sight when Cook starts to order you around,' the woman thought, resisting the urge to reprimand her for impertinence. Cook was, after all, the only one who hadn't run off by the time she had returned. She deserved a little more than her regular pay on occasion just for that show of loyalty.  
"Fine, Cook. What would you like--" getting out a pad of paper and pen.  
The cook rattled off her list. She needed eggs, she needed bread, she seemed to need everything. It made the woman sardonically wonder how the cook had managed to make the apple cake when she was so out of ingredients, or at least said she was.  
The woman nodded and put on her coat, removing a faded handbag from the door.   
"I shall return," she muttered in the fake melodrama that had caused more than just the cook to roll her eyes. "Good-bye."  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
Author's Note: I will be on vacation from the eighteenth to the twenty-seventh, so this will probably be my last update for awhile. ^_^ Don't worry, I'm coming back. 


	13. Interval, Shopping

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer Sarcasm: I own DBZ. Not.   
  
Acey: *voice dripping sarcasm* Almost as brilliant a disclaimer as the Valley Girl one.  
  
Author's Note: I got back from vacation, apparently (it was all right-- were it not for the fact that I go to the same place every year it would have been even more enjoyable), and before starting this chapter I went over to fanfiction.net to see what had or had not appeared in my absence. Wow, lots of updates-- "Letters" was way on down the list. I was only gone for a few days...  
  
The shoutouts:  
  
Kelly Neptunus: You're going to France? I always wanted to go there, that's really neat!  
  
Manda-Chan: I'm glad you think it's still suspenseful. I try hard to keep that part up as best I can.  
  
And now, chapter thirteen. As always, enjoy.  
  
The grocery store was packed, crammed with people going up and down the aisles. A parent was trying to coax her screaming, bratty child into silence by promising to buy him candy, the newest packs of trading cards, anything to keep her sweet darling quiet. The woman shot them a sharp look, which the mother returned while her child, seeing the opportunity, yelled harder that he needed an aircar model kit.  
"Yes, all right, honey, I'll get it for you, okay? That okay with you?"  
'Stupid parenting, asking your child to dictate what you should and should not buy for him,' the woman thought, irritated, as she passed the mother's buggy. 'Insanity.'  
"Okay, Mom," came the pretentious, innocent reply. The woman rolled her eyes and stopped her buggy as she dug through her handbag for the list, pulling it out a moment later.  
'Baking soda, sugar, okra, asparagus, flour, lemon concentrate, cream of tartar, string beans, rice-- Cook wants me to buy the store for her,' the woman thought, disgruntled. 'Wonderful. Okra isn't even in season.'  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
She finished buying groceries half an hour later, having gotten all items but the okra after seeing the price. Five zene a package was outrageous, and the woman would have told the manager so if she had thought it would get her anywhere. She could see him from her place at the check out counter, a man in his mid to late forties, balding, and looking like the last person to haggle with one of his customers, unfortunately enough. He had the arrogant look she'd heard of somewhere, incorrect arrogance, probably, but--  
Of course. Gero had called those twins arrogant in his letters.  
The clerk absently muttered the total under her breath. Her stupid shift would be over in ten minutes, but with her luck the old lady would take that long to pay up.   
"Ma'am," she began in annoyance, "the total--"  
The woman pulled out a checkbook and waited.  
"-- twenty-six zene."  
She wrote the amount out in her illegible handwriting and handed it to the clerk, who barely looked at the piece of paper before dropping it into the cash register.  
"Have a nice day."  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
Author's Other Note: I apologize for the longer than usual wait for this chapter. If all goes well, the next few chapters will not take nearly as long to work out. 


	14. Final Correspondence

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer False Depression: I *sniff* don't *sob* own DBZ. Waahhh!  
  
Acey: Remember the word "false," please.  
  
The shoutouts:  
  
Manda-Chan: Android info? ^__^ There's some in this chapter.  
  
Chuquita: Yeah, knew the total before the clerk did-- she's not stupid.  
  
And now, chapter fourteen. I really do hope you like it.  
  
  
She left, awkward teenage bagboy following closely behind, metallic wheels of his upright buggy flashing slightly in the sun. A part-time job, no doubt a job he was forced into by parents, but all the same he was far from a mediocre bagboy; you could tell by the way he watched the woman, paying her attention to ensure that he didn't lose track of her and have to go all around the parking lot looking for his customer. He didn't lose track of her now, as she turned straight from the where the aircars were parked and back to the store.  
The front of the store, at least. The bagboy glanced at her, figuring she had left something there.  
"Ma'am?" he said respectfully, "did you leave anything?"  
The kidnapped posters. She was looking at the kidnapped posters. He stole a look at them as well, wondering if one of the children on the wall was her grandchild. 'Better not to ask,' he thought as he scanned the photographs like he'd done ever since coming to work at the grocery store. You never could be too careful (though in his experience he'd never actually seen a single missing child), and anyway, it was the right thing to do.  
She was looking for one in particular, he realized when she asked if there were any from January somewhere. The bagboy reponded by taking her back inside the store and pointing to a wall with posters of missing children of months and years before. Mostly it was a custodial thing, the parent who didn't have the kid full time would take him or her and leave, but there were other cases on occasion, posters that said at the bottom"kidnapper unknown."   
Like the one she was pointing at.  
"That one, ma'am?"  
Twins, the words on the bottom saying who they were smeared by an unexpected rain (or a janitor's spill of cleaning fluid), fall school pictures, probably in junior or senior year, both facing the photographer's camera with an annoyed expression, blue eyes daring. Obviously rebels. He had the type at his school more often than he would like, but--  
He decided to ask her anyway, be it polite or not.  
"Are they your-- your grandkids?"  
"No," she said quietly. "No."  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
"No" could have been the word to describe her whole feeling that minute. She had found them, come so close. Smeared ink was all that kept her from saving them somehow this very minute.  
'Not just the smeared ink,' the ever-logical, ever-annoying part of her brain reminded her. 'You couldn't have helped them even then. You still don't even know where his lab is, you fool.'  
Perhaps she didn't, she thought in retaliation as she told the patient bagboy that they could go to her aircar now, and paid him the two zene more that he deserved when they got there and he packed the groceries in the trunk, but she would.  
The woman pulled the last letter from her coatpocket.  
She would.  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
My dear ___________, February 21, 760  
  
You know this is the last letter. I hope you have enjoyed our lengthy correspondence-- my lengthy correspondence, really. I hope it amused you, intrigued you, as you and I go into the twilight years of living. Time is such a hateful, ugly thing.  
I won't give you a long essay with thrown-in hints like I've done in the past. Essays are for college students, after all, and though you and I graduated from that place with high honors; it is safe to say that our dear old Western Capital alma mater has no further need of our compositions. The college kept most mementos; we kept only the memories and a cap and gown and diploma.  
You'd think it would be more damp in here where I write to you, but fortunately, this place is fixed up more or less like my old laboratory back with Red Ribbon, though it still has its old, rather rocky exterior. There's even air-conditioning in here now, not that it needs it. The environment here is as sterile as a doctor's office, which is not only enormously more pleasing than the way it was when I first came here, but is necessary, gives much less chance for error. After all, we're both doctors. You could, if you wanted to, consider this my own office, the office of one whose services go unpaid for which there is no real award but a feeling of success unshared by the rest of the world. Dear, you know how it is. You're the only scientist left that doesn't work single-mindedly for or with anyone but yourself. Your discoveries remain your discoveries, as mine will remain mine. The Capsule Corporation with its countless employees and sheer monopolization can't take credit for your advances in the field of genetics when they were made before it was even a company.  
So with those parting thoughts on paper and in mind, I say my farewell, dear. Whether you figure it out or not, I bid you goodbye and send highest regards, and even a few selfish wishes that things could have gone better for both of us.  
I end this final letter now.  
  
Your old colleague,  
  
Doctor Gero  
  
********************************************************************** 


	15. Crash

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer Conformity: I don't own DBZ. Acey does not sound even remotely like Toriyama.  
  
Author's Note: Nope, I'm not dead yet. Give me sixty or so more years. =) This was delayed by a lot of things. My interest for the fandom of DBZ hasn't really faded, but the onset of school (and EXAMS) has really cut down on my spare time. But I'm not going to leave this fic, or any others, unfinished. *Watches as people make bets on how long it's going to take for "Letters" to finish*  
  
That's enough. Now, on with chapter fifteen.   
  
The last letter. That had been the last letter.  
She couldn't believe it. There were no blatant hints enclosed, only memories, bitter memories, of monopolies and aging and eventual death, such things that were cruel to think about and crueler, so much crueler, to experience firsthand. His meaning was obvious. Gero yearned for the old days.  
"You want the past yet you build cyborgs," she said finally, cuttingly. The woman would have dearly liked to see what he would have said to that one. Immediately a vision of college Gero again, snapping some utterly logical comment back that reduced her ego a few pegs came to mind. She pushed the thought aside.  
There was nothing logical in the slightest about taking twins away and using them that way, promising money for their time yet keeping them so unknowing, so dangerously unknowing, of what the true price would be. Nothing in the slightest; it went against every moral, every ideal of the civilized world.  
'They should have suspected. Anyone would have suspected.'  
Perhaps they hadn't thought they had much to lose. The woman's mind conjured up a thousand broken-home scenes, most thanks to the media, others based on what people had told her. Any of those could have been Seventeen and Eigh--  
Now she, too, was calling them by numbers. Depriving them of what might have been the last claim to humanity they had at this late date. She bit her lip at the sickening realization that Gero's thoughts in his letters-- the wretched, awful letters-- were now beginning to reflect her own. A little later and everything might make perfect sense, everything, from the kidnappings to the false promises to the illegal work in cybernetics, if she kept on searching for whatever meaning Gero was attempting to imply.  
It wasn't the meanings. The meanings were nothing more or less than distractions to keep her from seeing the entire picture, something to keep the only fact she now needed hidden-- where he was.  
She turned on the ignition and drove away from the grocery store, letter number six folded neatly alongside maps and glasses and insurance information underneath the front passenger's seat.  
  
************************************************************************  
  
She turned on one of the backroads, an old one that had only in the past decade been paved. Even so, it was narrow, twisted, even in an aircar, forcing the driver to swerve to avoid bushes and the limbs of trees. The woman noticed above her a couple of teenagers doing stunts with their aircars, trying to get as close as they could to the treetops without actually touching them. She contemplated flying the car up and telling them the horrible figures of pilots a hundred years ago who had died trying to do that. Of course, the general response of the youth would be the rolling of eyes and a total ignorance of her words. It would practically serve them right if they did touch the treetops by accident.  
The woman didn't look too far in front of herself. Didn't see the small object out the side mirror above the proclaimation "objects in mirror are closer than they appear;" the small object going larger and larger with every second that passed.  
She could only drive on, not noticing, not knowing, until the last seven seconds, when the thing came into view and was found not to be merely an object but an aircar, a true clinker of an aircar, coming straight, straight in her direction--  
The woman could only watch, foot frozen on the gas pedal, greenish eyes locked steadfastly on the icy blue of the man in the other aircar as he smashed straight into her.  
  
************************************************************************ 


	16. Interval, Double Date

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Blatant Disclaimer: Does Mr. Toriyama know English? And if he does, why is he writing fanfiction on a series he stopped? Hmm. Maybe it's none of the above, and I am not Mr. Toriyama... (which I'm not; I can't draw nearly that well-- but I try hard).   
  
Author's Note: I'm surprised at myself. I keep looking back over my files... half my computer screen is filled with files bearing almost the same inscriptions: lettersone.txt, letterstwo.txt, and so on and so forth. I never, ever thought that at this late date from the publish date I would still not be finished... but I want to say thanks to everyone who has stuck around reading this despite that. You all deserve it.   
  
Laughter.  
Four o'clock post meridian on a Saturday, and there was laughter, echoing high, barely above the treetops. Laughter, reckless laughter, that came from a derivement of such adrenaline-fueled pleasure as is seldom found in any but the young.  
"This is a heck've a lot better than going to the movies like we were about to," one said after the slight fit ended. "What do you say?"  
The girl with him nodded, and waved at the couple in the aircar nearby, smiling as they returned the greeting.  
"Yeah. Way to double date-- especially when there aren't any good movies in the theaters this week anyway."  
He grinned. Sarcasm was bonus points to find in any date. Most girls spent their time at the movies or at restaurants only staring at him in practical bliss, or so it appeared, at any rate, as he had been able to easily swipe their food, regardless if it was egg drop soup or popcorn, with no protests. Just rather starry eyes that made him think suddenly that the girl looked like some pink specimen of cow, and that bored him, so he rarely went with any of them more than once. His specialty in dating was cheerleaders (but he had guidelines for those: no freshmen or rookies to the cheer squad, no matter how cute), as fit, as he was on the football team. This new date was one of them, a brown-eyed junior whose formerly chestnut hair had been a shade of platinum blonde since the sixth grade (an all-over blonde, no mere streaks would ever befitt one of cheering status).   
She was a more interesting date than normal, that was for sure. A tad witty. He chuckled inwardly. She wouldn't know how uncommon such a privelige was, but he would ask her out again, if all remained well. She'd enjoyed the double date with his friend and his friend's girlfriend so far, so probably--  
She called his name while he was fumbling with the radio and making plans for how the rest of their time would go (he was getting rather bored trying to fly the aircar as low as he could without hitting treetops). He had barely found his own favorite station before she spoke.  
"Look over here," she said, voice losing some of its characteristic flippant quality as she leaned part of her ponytailed head out the window.   
He looked.   
He saw nothing at first but the branches of trees ordinary to the area, trees and a hardly-used road. Deciding that it was a joke, part of him wanted to try to find the radio station again, but something held him back and he kept looking, down below him to the almost unused roadway.  
The sight of a small, irrepairably smashed cherry car greeted him, lone on the paved road barely in use in the day and age of the aircar. 'So much technology, and there were still crashes,' he thought absently, before it registered in his mind that there was no one else there, no police cars or ambulances. And--(oh, no worse situation imaginable for teenagers already pegged as reckless!) no other driver. No one else with a damaged car by the scene, trying to help. A hit-and-run had occured less than a hundred feet below them.  
"What're we going to do?"  
His date, worried-sounding, afraid. He looked down once more.  
"We didn't do this." A fact which was painfully obvious by the lack of dents on their aircar or his friend's, and from the look on his date's face, it was by far not the response she hadwanted.  
He pulled out a cell phone from its resting place beside the cupholders containing what was left of a can of soda pop, and dialed three fingernail-sized numbers.  
"Hello? We're on Maudlin Street in Western Capital, and there's been some kind of accident..."  
  
************************************************************************  
  
The ambulance barreled out in fifteen minutes, accompanied by police. They came in haste and questioned the four thoroughly, inspecting their cars for any sign that they had been involved in the accident. Everything came out clear; they were innocent, and were let go, dates shaky and altogether so miserable that neither pair remembered even goodnight kisses.  
The ambulance had other matters, as they opened the only car door untouched by the crash and pulled the driver out. One of the paramedics' eyes widened as he saw the driver's aged face.  
"That's-- I've seen her. I had to write a paper on her in science class in high school. She had some really big acheivements in genetics."  
"That's nice," said the other, annoyed. "You're supposed to be getting her out of here and into the back of the ambulance, not telling me what you wrote for a paper. You're being unprofessional."  
He checked the pulse of the woman. "Breathing. Cut up when the window glass shattered, I think. Hurry with the stretcher, if we get her to the hospital in time I think she'll be all right--"  
The other nodded and obeyed.  
  
************************************************************************  
  
The cook surveyed the meal, pleased. Miss's favorites, baked potatoes with butter and half a dozen other condiments, lemonade made with out-of-season lemons (Miss despised lemonade mix, and had told her so the second she had first made it that way, not realizing the woman could tell the difference), baked chicken. To top it all off, the apple cake from the day before or so, now with a sugary glaze. If Miss didn't like that when she came home, then she was more sour than Cook thought. Miss's mood hadn't been the best in the past few days (even with the apple cake). The cook figured it must have been the realization of her old age with no children or grandchildren to comfort her. She had heard that on a movie she had once watched late one night when her favorite program had been off due to specials, a documentary on aging. It said that if the old person in question had family that often came to see them or close friends, the chances were greater that they would live longer.  
'Miss just has me, and even I go on vacation," had been her thought after watching it, and it had bothered her today. Cook pitied her employer. She deserved a few special meals, at least. though the cook would readily admit it wasn't exacly a proper substitute for family.  
She had just placed the two plates on the table when the phone rang. She answered, annoyed, supposing it to be Doctor Tanner or possibly Taylor, Tanner saying yet again how he had disproved all of Miss's theories on genetices, Taylor requesting a recommendation for his daughter to go to Harvard.  
"Hello, Doctor ______'s residence."   
"Hello, we're calling from Western Capital Hospital. Are you Miss ________'s -- child? Caregiver?"  
"Cook."  
"Oh. There's been an accident."  
The cook gripped the phone.  
"Accident--"  
"It was a car accident, a hit-and-run. She has been cut up badly, whiplash, a broken bone. We believe she will recover in several weeks. In the meantime, she's in the emergency room number--"  
The cook murmered what was taken for a yes and copied down the information, phone numbers, room number, hanging up the phone, face suddenly looking years older than it actually was for a few seconds. She looked again at the meal without appetite, and smiled sadly as a thought came to her mind. The cook walked outside, capsule in hand, and opened it, watching absently as a rather dingy car appeared. An outdated automobile, given to her by a well-meaning great-aunt fifteen or sixteen years before. She nodded, and ran back into the house, emerging outside again carrying the platters of food in her hands.  
"They said you had a broken bone, but they didn't say you had to eat hospital food," she said, and she got in the car and backed out of the driveway.  
  
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	17. Hospital

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Manda Podima, here's the promised update before Thanksgiving! =) Everyone, please note that I'll be gone on vacation to my grandparents' house in Charleston, South Carolina from November twenty-sixth to November thirtieth, and so unless I sneak onto my cousin's comp for hours at a time in the early hours of the morning I highly doubt there'll be any updates during that time. So, before I leave, here's an early Happy Thanksgiving for all of you!  
  
Obvious Disclaimer: Mr. Toriyama can draw much better than I can. If I only had a scanner I could show you just how monstrous my lack of talent with drawing the DBZ cast really is... but I don't and I won't, and instead will not further delay chapter seventeen.  
  
"Miss. Miss." The words went through her blurred mind like a psychic's chanting, repetitive, ingratiating. Several moments went by before she knew who the speaker was refering to, and still more before she responded in turn.  
"C-cook." A hesitant utterance from one usually so dead-set in all her ways. She tried slowly to move an arm, but her cook stopped her movements, pushing it gently back down to her side.  
"Don't, the doctor says that you shouldn't strain yourself, Miss, especially now, right after--"  
Her mistresses' eyes lost part of the vague look they had had since the beginning of her visit to her room, when the cook had been escorted in by the said doctor. He had been a good enough man, the cook had thought, grave and polite in his scrubs as he asked if her mistress had any family and so on, and telling her that she would be all right within several weeks as long as no strains were put on her. Official things that the cook identified with, could understand, put into English. He'd told her that her employer would not look so well, would look out of it until the effects of her pain medications wore off, and the cook, in mild bewilderment, had seen them for herself.  
The eyes had been dulled by medicated morphine, like a manga character's when in a trance or faint, watered-down as an artist fades paint shades. The too-sharp, too-obvious, pointed intellect had gone from them, leaving a sort of hollow where it had been. The face-- Cook did not particularly wish to look upon it, covered in white gauze and bandages, an intraveinous unit in one arm. Her left leg was in a cast, elevated. And that doctor had called her lucky.  
'Some idea he has of luck,' the cook thought as her mistress spoke.  
"The car crashed. It crashed."  
The woman closed her fingers on part of the bedsheet, gripping it tightly.  
"It was a hit-and-run; they don't know who it was, Miss--"  
"I do, Cook."  
  
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Clever cowardice on his part, to find such a way to evade her eventual realizations and pursuit. Very clever, and so like him, the remains of her former colleague. Gero.  
The woman had known it to be him right before the moment of the crash, when she saw the steel blue of his eyes. Like a blind man's they had stared at her like they both saw and didn't see her, or that they saw only her, a stare so malicious and sadistic to remind her of Renassiance artists' depictions of the Devil. She had never seen his or anyone else's eyes like that, so cruel, calculating. She never would again.  
'He must have known I would go that route. He must have known, somehow.' The thoughts emerged starkly, finally, from the daze of the medications. 'The only question is how he did.'  
No more was he behaving as a child with a new game. Gero was as a desperate man, raising the stakes to include the risk of her own life and not just the possible ruination of his. The letters were not intended for her amusement or for her warning; if they had once been they were surely not now. He did not trust her. He had discovered that she was no longer his confidant, that as she was closer to the truth, as she decoded each correspondence, her intent to reveal all became more pronounced. Gero's former colleague had turned against him, he either had realized it the day of the crash or had known it all along.  
Or if perhaps he had never maintained his trust in the woman, he was instead still toying with her, a cat-and-mouse game. If that was the case then he might have merely been showing his power over her by something more deadly than a few pieces of paper, not serious enough to kill her. Or he had tried to kill her all along...  
"Miss." Cook again, interrupting her thoughts.  
The woman made a serious look half-hidden by bandages. "Yes, Cook..."  
Cook was smiling, plump, plain face losing what little dour there was in it.  
"I brought you dinner, Miss..."  
She pulled out platters snuck into the hospital by heaven knew what method, filled with food, her mistresses' favorite dishes, baked potatoes still hot, the butter condiment melted and near -evaporated on their surfaces. Chicken very warm, fresh and good-smelling. And the remainders of last night's apple cake.  
"Didn't have time to get the lemonade in a thermos, Miss, but--"  
Her mistress heard nothing else of the apology as she realized with a start and nearly a cry that her Cook possessed a gentler, kinder heart than she had ever known was there.  
  
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	18. Tanner

"Letters" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: What makes me feel that I should've just said "This goes for all chapters" on the first one? The chances of me owning DBZ are as slim as me winning the lottery. Considering I don't even play the lottery... you get the idea.  
  
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long in the making; I've been having to study like a maniac these past few days for my last geometry tests and stuff. I've also been trying to finish up on a couple of one-shots (one is DBZ related, the other one is Yu Yu Hakusho) that have been plaguing me for quite awhile to end and post (believe me, they are really killing me). Vacation was nice though. So... I hope that this (longish) chapter will make up for my absence. Have a Merry Christmas!  
  
They let her out of the hospital several weeks later amid cards and flowers sent by people she didn't know and people she wished she didn't know. Old coworkers, mostly, rivals in her field. A few scrawled cards likely from high school students around the city whose teachers had forced them to write sympathy notes. Even Tanner and Taylor had sent a few flowers via special deliveries.  
Cook had been enthralled with the early-blooming roses and daisies and had arranged them carefully in vases as though she thought a florist might critique them while she was absent, making her mistresses' next meal. The woman had supposed that the nurses and receptionists had to know that her cook was bringing her her food every day but refrained from telling anyone about it. The smell of chicken and bread rolls was too obvious not to miss.  
The woman had come slowly to realize her cook's immeasurable worth during the stay. Cook deserved more than the double pay she had given her for staying when the other maids had left after they thought their employer would not return from her trip in time. That day seemed an eon ago now, that day when she had parked her aircar by her house and seen the lone Cook there, and asked her for the letters. At that point she thought of the middle-aged cook as a worker only, a faithful worker, to be sure, but no more. The woman had not considered her a friend, had not even expected her to do any more for her than what the job description had required, to make the meals and a bit of light cleaning.  
Yet Cook had done more, so much more, complaints and mutterings aside. Even before the letters, Cook had worked extra hours, Cook had made special meals at random, Cook had been a constant, large force-- one of the few people she associated, communicated with now, besides the doctors and nurses at the infirmary. The cook's visits were the only ones she looked forward to.  
For the most part the hospital was dull. Nurses on double shift woke her up for vital signs on autopilot, seemingly. The woman had thought before being sent there that all of the vital signs were done via computer, surely-- but Western Capital Hospital had that luxury reserved for those in emergency situations.   
"Doctor _________?"  
She snapped to attention at the voice of her doctor as the television blared on about the winner of a game show or some nonsense like that. She pressed the off button on the remote with her free hand and the screen went blank.  
"Yes?"  
"Someone to see you, a man named Dwight Tanner."  
Even when she was incapacitated Tanner would not leave her alone.  
"You can let him in. Thank you."  
The doctor nodded and opened the door to the other man as he left her room. Tanner nodded his thanks as he came inside, gray work hat with a burgundy brim in his hands and a matching grey suit with a pinstripe shirt. The woman looked up at him, realizing his hair had gone from dull brown with a few streaks of white to white with a few streaks of brown in the fifteen years since she had seen him in person. He was not stooped with old age; he was as invigorating and healthy as ever, ruddy cheeks proving the fact. Tanner's eyes underneath the trifocals remained hazel orbs of vast knowledge and vaster bluster. The man she had known since college only by surname, so eager to shoot down new ideas and so threatened by even the slightest hint of their being one of a higher intellect even near him, standing by her bedside.  
"Hello, __________," he said, setting his hat next to a vase full of flowers, eyes bright, but definetly not in glee over her condition. "I'm very sorry I haven't seen you in so long, and I wish that I had come to see you before now. How are you feeling?"  
The same voice, too, the same odd unrhythmic but grammatically correct choice of word placement. The woman hid her amusement at this.  
"Excellent for someone in a near-fatal car crash where the car and I were close to being demolished," she said, trying to match his way of speaking and coming up short. He smiled wryly at the attempt.  
"No, I can't say you'll ever be demolished, __________. For that you're too willful. There's too much self-preservation about you." Tanner chuckled. "But really, what I wanted to relay other than my own personal apology for your unfortunate accident--"  
"Tanner, it was as much of an accident as the Pythagorean Theorem is an accident."  
He raised his milky white eyebrows, causing his brow to furrow and every deep-set wrinkle in his forehead to become apparent.  
"Why do you think so?"  
She ignored the question. A thought had come to mind, disturbing and unrelated to Tanner, but an obvious thought, making her feel dimwitted as he continued, ever onward to his point like a mule.   
"Well, regardless of what you think about that topic, my main concern is something that you might possibly be able to help with once you're back on your feet, so to speak."  
"So the geneticists of today need the help of the has-been."  
"Nothing like that. I'm not going to be very involved with what we're hoping that you'll be helping us understand, though, much to your pleasure, I assume."  
"Yes, now continue."  
Tanner started, every phrase coming out with more excitement than the last despite his attempts at solemnity, making the woman note that he looked more like a college boy now than ever, despite his white hair and aged features.  
"You see, _________, there's been a great concern recently dealing with disease. Not so odd, you might say, unless you first understand the nature of this certain type of affliction; it is most certainly extremely uncommon, especially in the groups of people that it might affect..."  
To the point, to the point, Tanner, she thought as he continued to try to explain, getting three times as many details as she would have if she had been speaking with another but no direction as to what the exact problem was.  
"It's both strange and intriguing, this pathogen. I suppose it might possibly have come from too much. You understand?"  
Her response was agitated and tired, tired of conversations that went nowhere and tire of being in a sterile hospital bed and pure tire caused by sleepless nights.  
"I understand that by the time you get to the point you will have been here six hours. You refrained from clarifying what you mean by 'too much.'"  
He picked up his hat and laughed.  
"Only seeing if you truly were paying attention. Too much in the way of antibiotics and cures. When bacteria becomes mutated it can become--"  
"Spare me the biology lesson and tell me what's--"  
She stopped. A dark-haired nurse had appeared at her bedside with a new intraveneous unit and news from her doctor.  
"Excuse me, sir," the nurse said shyly (an intern, pale and nervous, unused to the responsibility her position required but young enough to embrace and accept it), "but you've stayed overtime. The doctor said that she needed rest. I'm afraid that you'll have to leave..."  
Tanner smiled, undeferred, as he nodded as a gentlemen ought to and picked up his hat, apologizing to both the woman and the nurse about his overstay, telling the woman he would pick up where he left off in another letter ".... and don't throw it in the garbage like I realize you likely do with my other ones-- I promise you that I have no intentions of disproving the theories you hold so dear at the moment...," and, returning his hat to his head, he left Western Capital Hospital, never to return until his death.  
  
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